Broker alternatives

Switching is worth it when the reason is structural rather than cosmetic: your strategy has outgrown the account type, the platform you need is not offered, the product you want to trade is missing, or the cost gap is large enough to matter at your volume.

Work the saving out in pounds before you move. A 0.2 pip improvement on a standard lot is about £1.60 a trade. At ten trades a week that is roughly £830 a year, which is worth a morning of admin. At one trade a week it is £83, which is not.

Service failures are the other legitimate trigger, and they are harder to quantify. Repeated requotes in fast markets, withdrawals that need chasing, or support that cannot answer a straight question about the entity holding your money are all reasons to leave regardless of the spread table.

Open and verify the new account before touching the old one. Fund it with a small amount, place one trade, withdraw the balance in full, and confirm the round trip works. Only then move the bulk of your capital.

Run both accounts in parallel for a few weeks if you can. It costs nothing to leave a small balance behind, and it gives you a live pricing comparison at the exact moments that matter rather than an average from a marketing page.

Close the old account formally once you are settled. Download every statement and trade confirmation first: brokers are not obliged to keep a portal open for you indefinitely, and those records are what settle any future dispute or tax question.